Go-Karting for work!

To be completely honest one of the things I love best about my job isn’t the work at all. It’s the things we do to try to build a community from folks that, at best, see each other two or three times a month. There are charity drives, Friday fly backs, clubs and groups, planning comities and happy hours, quite a few firm sponsored events, and then events that we organize for networking on our own and are paid for by a partner. This is all that extra stuff, that while it does eat up a lot of time, make being a consult such a unique experience (ok maybe that sounds like I’ve been drinking the kool-aid but I have not). One of these events that we had recently was really fun. A bunch of grown people, with very professional jobs, got together and decided to go go-karting. I actually shocked at the turn out for the event.

I have to admit that I was the provocateur in this adventure. When I joined the firm a year and a half ago I was assigned to a group that manages and configures SAP a large ERP software. I went to training and have been on two SAP projects now. The practice in Minneapolis though is very small. There are only 10 SAP practitioners local and when I joined there were only 6, most consultants in the region are out of Chicago. This presents a problem as it is hard to find good opportunities for projects as there is not a lot of activity being driven in the local office. Because of this I and a consultant in the office have wanted to organize a local group and eventually get it connected with similar groups in other offices to raise our visibility. The first step for this is to get everyone in the office to know each other and network.

The first time we tried to get everyone together we tried the basic happy hour invite. Unfortunately the only people the showed up were myself, another organizer, and the two more senior people that had agreed to sponsor. So we needed something more exciting. At first we hoped for a basketball, football, or hocky game. We did get the use of the box for a Timber Wolves game but not for several months. So we needed other ideas. We thought possibly an indoor golfing event; but the simulator and driving range indoor domes really aren’t set up for large groups. We thought about a wine tasting; but there was already one on the calendar for another group. So I figured I had always like go-karting why not see if anyone else was interested.

Well they were. In fact we had the highest turnout of any event to date. I think that most consultants are adrialine junkies. I know other groups in the past have done similar events and things like paint ball or rock climbing. So now we know how to get peoples attention. Consultants get free dinner and drinks on a regular basis; you have to be more creative to get them to give up some of their personal time.

Now, we didn’t plan on going to a normal go-karting track. Instead we planned to go to a more grown up version. There is a company in the Twin Cities call ProKart. They own two tracks indoor facilities that boast high performance European built cars. We went to the track in the southern part of the metro and rented the entire track out for an hour of racing. Plus we had some sandwiches catered and a side room for getting together. The cars that this track uses are said to get up to speeds in excess of 4 miles an hour. They do not cages or role bars. Instead they are built very close to the ground and count on a long/wide wheel base and very low center of gravity to keep them from flying off the track. There are no seatbelts either. Here the cars count again on physics using a tight bucket seat and proximity to the steering to keep riders in the car. The track has 6 or so tight turns, steel railings, skid marks across and down the width and length of the entire track, and one long strait away at the end. To say the least the 3 heats and 2 warm ups we had were quite a rush.

What was also very interesting about this outing was just how aggressive everyone was. The first 4 people were in a dead heat most of the time. One drive had an advantage as he weighed 50lb less than everyone else. When he hit the strait away his car just walked away. It didn’t matter how you drove if you were behind him. The trick was to keep him from passing as long as possible. I am proud that in 3 races I came in 2^nd, 1^st, and then 3^rd. There were two funny scenes in all of this crazy racing. The 1^st is the fact that every one took liberties bumping into each other, and for some reason the only partner of the group got knocked around more I think than most. The second was two of the drivers that just could not keep up. One was really trying to drive as fast as possible and was just a slow driver; the other was having fun just going at their own pace and not caring. It was amusing because they would be past as many as 4 times during a race.

The racing was so intense that I was hit from behind on a tight corner. I was doing 20+ mph and the guy that hit me was probably going close to 30. The car hit the side wall so hard that we bent the frame and the car could not long turn anymore! I also cut my knuckle on a piece of plastic flaring but kept racing anyway. It didn’t hurt, I did get a bit of hear full for bleeding over my jeans that night, but that’s ok. All in all it was a great outing and accomplished its purpose. We had great participation, people got to know each other better and they are all looking forward to the next event.